


Knock 'Em Dead, Kid

by orphan_account



Category: Mötley Crüe
Genre: English class results, I wanted to kill someone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:13:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10354974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Twenty minutes before show time, Tommy goes missing.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was a task in English class (writing a story with focus on progressive forms) and I don't know if I like it or not, but I thought I'd post it anyways. Fuck it.

**Chicago, Saturday evening, twenty minutes before show time.**

The whole band was sitting together, drinking and sharing a few laughs while their tech guys were retuning their guitars. After all these years, they were famous enough to have some free time before being on stage. But the whole time, Nikki noticed how his best friend Tommy kept glancing at his phone; not in a interested way, but rather scared. However, Nikki knew that bringing it up in front of the band would only resolve in Tommy denying anything being wrong and simply ignoring him for the next hours, maybe even days. 

"Guys, I'm gonna head out for a sec, don't touch my beer!", Tommy, suddenly exclaimed, standing up and leaving the others alone, although they didn't acknowledge him. By now they were all used to one of them heading out all of a sudden, even if they had an important event coming up. They'd been shouted at too often for them to care anymore, because nothing ever happened. Besides, they all assumed that the drummer would only have a smoke or two, nothing to worry about. 

-

Nevertheless, when he didn't return after ten minutes, Nikki started to become nervous, fidgeting in his seat. Mick noticed and chuckled quietly to himself, patting his shoulder.

"He's probably just smoking another cigarette, maybe buying a new pack. No need to worry!", he exclaimed, but upon noticing Nikki's half-hearted smile, he sighed and continued: "But if it makes you feel better, why don't you just check on him? And remind him to be punctual this time!" 

The bassist nodded quickly, already running out of the door, leaving the older guitarist to shake his head, still grinning. He knew that Tommy was probably just trying to get pumped up before the show one way or another and that he would probably be late, but fine nonetheless. However, it amused him that out of all guys, Nikki was the one worrying about the drummer. Nikki, the guy who had left them waiting in a hospital, fearing for his life, more than once. 

-

While Mick continued chatting with Vince, or rather listening to complaints about a sore throat, Nikki looked around the empty street. His heart started beating faster when he couldn’t see the drummer, not leaning against the building, but also not in the small shop across the street. Cursing quietly to himself, the bassist was about to go back inside and check the bathrooms for his best friend, he noticed a pair of black sunglasses and a white phone on the street, both belonging to Tommy. Picking them up, Nikki pushed his hair out of his face, sprinting back inside to get Mick. Because no matter what the drummer did, he never discarded his phone and glasses on the street, not even when he was hammered. 

-

“Mick! Wait up! We have an emergency!”

The older one turned around, watching the bassist run up to him, panting slightly. 

“Have you found him? Did he overdose?”   
“That’s the problem. I have no fucking clue where he is, but I found his stuff!”  
The guitarist immediately knew that this was bad news. Tommy would rather fly back home to get his stuff rather than living without it for even a few days. He definitely wouldn’t discard them just like that.

“I’m coming with you, let’s see if he got beaten up or something! Vince, you stay here in case he comes back!” 

“But what if someone’s following him?”, the singer asked, making both other men stare at him in confusion. 

“You know, I’m blonde, I’ll die first!” 

Nikki shook his head, holding himself back not to punch the singer for holding him back for even a second. 

“I won’t miss you!”, he shot back, before turning away from the singer to run back outside, closely followed by Mick. The older one maybe wasn’t the youngest anymore, but when he was worried like now, he could run fast.

-

Barely outside, they both looked around, but there was nothing, not a single car on the street, no people. 

“I guess there goes my idea of asking people. Are we in a freaking ghost town?”, Mick exclaimed, obviously getting more anxious now as well, after making sure himself that Tommy wasn’t right outside. As much as he loved Nikki, when he was high (which wasn’t a rare occurrence), he tended to freak out about things or people missing that were just were they should be, sometimes even watching Nikki with amusement (something that especially Tommy loved to do). 

“Where is he?!”, the bassist shouted at the empty street in front of him, hoping to get a reply. He did get one, but not the one he hoped for. He wanted Tommy to just walk up to him, laughing and mocking his reaction, but Tommy stayed hidden. 

-

Instead, all of a sudden, the two heard a gun shot, followed by a loud scream. Nikki froze upon recognizing that voice and immediately, Mick’s gaze caught the hidden entry of a narrow alley. Once he pointed that out to his band mate, they both took off running. 

As soon as they turned around the corner, he saw a man in a black sweatshirt, face covered by hoods, running away quickly. They both wanted to hunt him down, but Mick was too worn out to follow him and Nikki stayed focused on the body of his best friend, falling forward onto the already bloody street. 

“Tommy!”  
He fell down to his knees, turning the younger one’s body around in his arms, to talk to him again. He expected to see a shot wound on the chest, maybe in the stomach. He absolutely wasn’t prepared to see half of his friend’s face missing. Screaming, he let him fall down, stumbling back. Immediately, Mick came up to him, still on his phone, calling an ambulance, but once he saw the body himself, he changed his mind, calling up the police department instead. This was nothing else than murder. 

Nikki didn’t know who the guy was who shot his best friend, but as the silent tears were streaming down his face and he was leaning against Mick for some comfort, he swore Tommy revenge. Oh, he would be looking for the murderer. He would find him. And then, he would get a bullet in his brain and missing heart. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Chicago, the next day, on the tour bus.**

When Mick was waking up in the morning, he hoped that it had all been a weird nightmare, but walking up to the front lounge, seeing Nikki sitting on the couch with his head in his hands, he knew that it was real. He couldn’t point out why he realised, because it wasn’t too unusual for Nikki to be awake after shooting up on heroin, but maybe it was the sadness in the bassist’s eyes, maybe the bottles of liquor in front of him, maybe the fingers clutched around one of Tommy’s necklaces that pointed the situation out to him. 

“Have you slept at all?”, Mick asked quietly. 

The only response he got was a short grunt, along with the shake of his head. Not that Mick had thought he would have, but he thought it would’ve been unfair not to ask at all. 

“Have you at least eaten something?”   
“No. Stop asking.” 

Sighing to himself, Mick sat down next to his friend, pushing some bottles out of the way, before glancing down at his ownphone to read some of the e-mails the management kept sending him about cancelling the concert and not giving the fans any information on why. 

“Any idea who did it?” 

“Yes.”  
For a second, the guitarist thought that either he had heard it wrong, or that Nikki was too drunk to think, but then the bassist held an article on his phone in his face, about one of Chicago’s most famous mafia bosses being caught and admitting to five murders in that night. None of the five victims were named in the article, but Nikki was convinced that Tommy was one of them. 

“Are you sure that it’s the mafia boss? C’mon, man, that was a simple drug dealer. Just because they caught someone doesn’t mean that it’s the person we’re looking for”, Mick objected, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe that a mafia boss would just walk around in a black hoodie to shoot random people. They usually had a good (at least in their eyes) reason to kill others, especially people who were a threat to them and Mick couldn’t imagine Tommy having trouble with the mafia in Chicago. He had enough money to pay all sorts of depth, he didn’t start random fights with someone and, most importantly, he didn’t go to the police for any fucking reason, not even if his own life was threatened. There was no use killing him, he was no harm to the criminal world. 

“I want it to be him.” 

“I know. I wish that they already caught the boy, too. But let’s face it, that was a low key drug dealer, no king of the streets. He probably only feared T-Bone would tell on him. No motive, no description, no criminal record. Police ain’t gonna find him, we gonna do that on our own.” 

“Will you help me?”, Nikki asked hopefully, looking over to the elder. 

“That little bitch killed one of my best friends, of course I’m gonna help you hunt him down. But you ain’t doing yourself a favor if you keep drinking like crazy. So come on, go to bed, sleep for at least eight hours, survive your hangover. And then, when you’re fit again, we’re gonna fuck that asshole up so he’ll be digging his own grave very soon. “

“How is he gonna-?”, he started to ask, but Mick cut him off with a smirk that scared the bassist. He wasn’t used to this devilish side of the guitarist, who usually was the mother figure of the group. Apparently he also was a mother in the sense of nobody got to touch (or in this case even kill) his children.   
“We’re gonna help him. In the park.” 

Nikki smiled slightly, but then he stopped and stared at his bandmate in confusion, trying to figure something out in his head, which obviously didn't work out too good while he was completely hammered. 

“And if we get caught?”

Mick laughed. 

“First of all, if they can’t find the killer, why should they find us. Second of all, I don’t care if we get put into prison forever, I’m old, I’ll die soon enough anyways and as long as it’s for avenging Tommy I couldn’t care less.”  
Nikki nodded slowly, looking over to his bandmate, before standing up, trying to hold himself up, before Mick grabbed his arm and steadied him while shaking his head, leading the wasted bassist into the bunk part, where he pushed him on his mattress, covering him up with a thin blanket. 

“Sleep tight, Nikki”, he chuckled, watching as the younger turned around, grabbing a pillow with the hand that wasn’t still clutching Tommy’s necklace,before falling asleep almost instantly. Mick knew that he had lied before, he definitely was scared of being caught and getting put into prison, but for Nikki’s sake he had to be at least a little optimistic. They would talk again when Nikki was sober and able to actually remember anything at all, but before that, Mick had to talk to the police. He didn’t like them, he didn’t like their way of working, but if they were caught he hoped to have better chances if he asked the police for help before and they weren’tsuccessful. So instead of trying to get in contact with local drug dealers, he decided to call 911 first. 

“911 what’s your emergency?”

“My friend got shot a few hours ago.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Still Chicago, a week later, in the park.**

“I can’t believe we’re actually doing this”, Nikki groaned, climbing out of the small hole and sitting on the wet grass. It was raining, it was dark and the wind was hitting him in the face. Long story short, it sucked to be here. But that meant that except for Mick and Nikki, nobody was around, not even police. Not that there was usually much police around here when there was nicer weather, but it was riskier. Of course, most drug dealers wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about it, but stupid high school teens who wanna be cool might. 

“You were the one who wanted to kill him”, Mick stated coldly, looking down at the bloody body laying next to him on the ground. 

“But only because you offered to help!”, Nikki exclaimed, taking a swig of the beer standing next to the made up grave. He remembered the actual hunt and his bones still hurt from falling down multiple times whilst running after the drug dealer in question, until Mick managed to cut him off with a short cut and seized him on the ground, before Nikki shot Tommy’s murderer right in the head. He had originally planned to interrogate him first, but after seeing the smirk on his face, he couldn’t hold back. He knew that this drug dealer didn’t regret anything, so there was no use asking about it.

 

“Are these six feet yet?”, he asked after a few hours, panting breathlessly. 

Mick looked down in the hole, shrugging carelessly, before finishing his own drink, sitting down next to the small lamp that provided barely enough light for the two of them. He couldn’t risk more light in order not to be seen. 

“It’ll be sufficient. We don’t wanna give him a complete funeral.” 

The bassist nodded, before kicking the body down into the darkness without a second glance. 

“For our brother, you fucking dumbass”, he mumbled, before throwing the by now empty cans of beer down the grave as well. Then, out of nowhere, he started to giggle. He was drunk, high and finally reached his goal of avenging Tommy. He was . . . hysterical. To any stranger it would sound like a hyena, but Mick only laughed along, helping his bandmate to close the grave again, before hiding the earth underneath some leaves. In the back of his mind, Nikki asked himself why the guitarist seemed to be so experienced with dead bodies, but then he blamed it on the age, movies and tv shows, and moved on. 

When they were completely done, Mick switched out the light he had brought along and grabbed Nikki’s arm to pull him back towards the bus. 

“Do we have to go back yet? Can’t I admire our work?”, Nikki complained whiningly, not looking forwards to seeing the singer again. It wasn’t against Vince directly, but the singer had no idea what they had been doing and they really didn’t want him to find out. 

“The longer we wait the more questions Vince will ask. So come on and let’s get some food first to make it less obvious.” 

“Obvious? Do you think he knows what we’ve been up to?”

“I doubt it. He’s not capable of ever understanding our minds anyways”, Mick chuckled, not really caring or worrying about their lead singer who was left behind the last few days. Until now they had always come up with different excuses every time they went out to hunt the drug dealer down, but now they couldn’t think of anything anymore, so they started from the beginning again: ‘We were getting food’. Probably, the singer wouldn’t care anyways. He would simply guess that Nikki was shooting up and Mick was making sure he didn’t die (again). 

 

Standing in front of the bus, all the lights were off, everything was empty. 

“Looks like he’s out by himself or sleeping”, Mick commented with a second glance at it, before pulling his key out of his pocket to unlock the door. 

“True. That guy doesn’t do anything helpful-“, the bassist started, stepping into the tour bus, but then stopped very shortly, staring at Mick with pure fear in his eyes. 

“Apparently not”, Mick mumbled when he glanced at the three police officers awaiting them on the bus, one of them already handcuffing Vince who shot the other two a dirty look, while the others quickly seized Nikki and Mick as well. 

“Mötley Crüe, you are arrested for murder. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used up against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was it, I guess. Hope you liked it. Feedback as always would be incredibly welcome.


End file.
